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Another possible promotion?

Published at: 05:05 am - Sunday May 20 2012

Great news, everybody! I may be getting yet another promotion, though I am not officially holding my breath for it, for reasons I am about to explain.

My work is getting really chaotic as of late. People are leaving the company left and right. In the midst of all of this chaos, the boss has taken it upon himself to hire a friend’s kid to be in our creative department. Initially, she was slated to be a project manager, but the art director and production supervisor both think she’s too young and inexperienced to do the job. They are recommending me for the project manager position, with her sort of assisting me by taking some work load off of my plate so I can focus on that. They believe that the company has been investing in me getting this education for the supervisor skills diploma at continuing education, so it would be more beneficial to start putting me in that direction.

However, we know very little about the circumstances involved in the hiring of this new person. We don’t even know how they know each other. The boss has been known to give a lot to friends and family, while everyone else gets nothing. This is why I am not really holding my breath over it.

What I do know for sure though, is if she gets the office I have been having my eye on since we practically moved into the building, I will be really upset.

So it looks like my career is finally getting some stability of sorts. This is good.

Earlier this week, I was sent an invite from a friend to join some new dating website. Feeling a little lonely, I checked it out for a couple of days. Dating sites is now officially not going to be my source of meeting people, just so you know. You get guys on these sites who do not fill out their profiles, so for all you know they are married or something. You also get a lot of jerks who you can just tell are interested in brief encounters (if you know what I mean), which is not something I would be interested in. Then I found myself avoiding going online because of that site, so I made the executive decision and removed my profile. I mean, when dirty 57 year old guys send you messages that basically say they are “experienced” and can help you find pleasure, you can’t help but think to yourself, “and just how many Viagra pills will be required for you to do that?”

I also upsized my TV package recently. I have gotten back to watching HGTV and things like that. It makes me dream for owning a house some day. Seriously! I love the shows House Hunters and any of the Holmes shows, as there is always a desire within me to own a house and remodel it. When I was unemployed a couple years ago, the idea of picking up a trade did appeal to me. I get a weird sense of creative accomplishment when I put something together and have something to show for it, or when I fix something. Even though it was weird to get excited over such a thing, I was literally leaping for joy when I discovered for myself how to change a toilet seat.

So, to recap so far, my career seems to be alright. The dating thing just isn’t me, and I really don’t think I was meant to do that. Some day I want to own a house and build it into my dream home. But how can I possibly come up with this?

Then an idea hit me when I was watching HGTV for a few hours today. I was wondering how these people were able to get houses in this day and age. It’s been a long fear of mine that I will never be able to own my own home in my lifetime. But, with the first promotion to Production Coordinator, I will now finally see a bit of a raise (a more comfortable one, too). So then I thought to myself, “somehow this year I am really handling all my bills and so forth very well, even with the added car payments and car insurance (which I was worried about, but am handling it fine without the raise yet). So… any extra money I get from my usual pay can now go to my nearly depleted savings account.”

The raise is $1.50/hr more than what I was making before, to a more comfortable $18/hr. I still have to see how that actually affects my income with taxes and stuff, but whatever extra I make from the usual pay can now go directly to the savings account. If I am diligent in putting that money in there every time (or set up automatic transfers), in five years when my car is paid off and my credit is back to normal again, I may have enough saved up for a down payment. If I can manage to save $200-$300 per pay, I could have $24,000-$36,000 saved up in five years. I should also get another raise by the end of the year to where I will be making $40,000/yr or more (likely not more). So again, I can reconfigure that amount when that raise goes through. All this depends on how much additional money I will make with the raise that the government does not decide to take away from me at present time. So I have to wait to the end of this month to figure out an actual budget.

It may also be beneficial for me to talk to a financial expert or something like that.

Five years is a long time to wait, but it also would give me something to look forward to. Besides, I know with my current credit it would be nearly impossible (if not totally impossible) for me to get a mortgage anyways.

And in those five years, I can finally work on losing weight, which has gotten out of control lately too. I need to figure out how to not feed myself junk food when I am feeling stressed out or depressed or something. More work to do, but worth doing in the end.

So, I just thought I would update people on what is going on with me as of late. My career seems to be finally taking off, so now I need to work on other facets of my life to make it more pleasurable. ;)

Thanks for reading.

Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high
take a look, it’s in a book, it’s reading rainbow

I can do anything
friends to know, and ways to grow
reading rainbow

 

Posted in: Creative, Daily Life by melldclute 1 Comment

Lost…

Published at: 08:05 pm - Sunday May 13 2012

Somehow I have managed to lose 2 pounds this week, which quite frankly, shocked me a little. I haven’t changed a damn thing about my horrible diet and lack of exercising at all, in fact I actually ate worse than I have in a long time. And yet, I lost 2 pounds on the scale. It will likely spike up again next week though if I don’t manage to do something about it.

I’m pretty sure my problems with weight loss lately are emotional. I know I eat because I am not happy. I find myself really hating myself, then I eat something horrible like M&Ms or potato chips, then I hate myself even more. I really don’t want to be this big. I feel absolutely gross, and I tend to feel like everyone else thinks that way too. It’s starting to make me feel really self-conscious, and makes me just want to hide away in my home, just wasting my life away.

It’s really a double-edge sword that I’m going through right now. On one hand, I’m avoiding people because I just don’t feel like I’m worth hanging around. On another hand, I really want to hang around other people but fear they don’t want to be around me anymore.

I have completely given my life over to my job, which I don’t even fully enjoy. I feel like I am missing out in life somehow. So when I feel this way, I reach for food. Food makes me temporarily feel better in the moment I am eating it, but it makes me feel worse after I eat it, both emotionally and physically. I actually do get stomach aches and feelings of illness when I eat this horribly, and you would think it would be enough for me to snap myself and say, “Damn it, Mell! Get your shit together!”, but of course, I just end up doing the same thing over and over again.

Then again, I have this weird belief that my life would get better if I lost the weight. I could buy better clothes, and feel like I’m attractive. But… I am reminded that in high school I was thin, and I didn’t feel attractive then either, though that was more because of the people bullying me than it was about what I thought about myself. Why am I supposed to believe that being thinner will make my life suddenly shape up and become something?

I do want to lose weight to be healthier, too. There are health issues in my family that I need to look after. But again, I find myself just sinking into my couch, watching TV or DVDs, or playing on my XBox or laptop, and eating nothing but junk food.

Maybe I need a weight loss buddy. It’s also difficult living in the area I live in and being overweight. Richmond, BC has the lowest weight range in the country, mostly because about 85% of the population is Chinese. But even being in the Vancouver area makes me feel more self-conscious as well, as it’s like the L.A. of Canada.

Maybe this is more about how I feel about my self than it is about my self-image. Do I like who I am? In some ways, yes. I have embraced my geek-side and do enjoy the things I enjoy. In many ways I don’t, though. I tend to feel like a big fraud. Putting up a brave face, pretending that I know my shit, but really struggling to figure out how to do this and how to do that. This is more so with work. Work is becoming far more stressful than usual, as we are starting to have people leaving left and right, and it’s making my job of monitoring the projects’ statuses to become a logistical nightmare. No one is taking me seriously, nothing is changing, and I’m just creating more work for myself than I really need to be doing.

I need to kick-start my life again. Somehow I have just lost myself in my work and have not been doing anything with my other facets in my life. That has to change somehow. I guess I need to re-invent myself… again.

Anyways, thought I would try to get all of this shit off of my chest. Thanks for reading. I guess I just wasn’t made for these times.

Posted in: Daily Life, Weight Loss by melldclute 1 Comment

Calgary Comicon and Fan Expo

Published at: 05:05 am - Thursday May 03 2012

What a wild and crazy time I had over the last weekend. There were great things, good things, not-so-good things, all coupled with a giant lack of sleep over the weekend.

I decided to drive to Calgary on Thursday instead of forking out the $600+ for airfare. I didn’t quite go the right way when traveling there, as I just stuck to the Number 1 highway, when I should have taken the Coquahalla highway instead. Combine that with about 95% of the trip was pouring rain, well it took me nearly 15 hours to get there.

While I was there, my parents let me sleep in their bedroom, so I could close the door with the cat inside with me. I really do appreciate them letting me sleep in their home and all, but holy crap is their mattress the most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever slept it. It literally felt like I was sleeping on a pile of boulders. Needless to say, I don’t think I got more than 10 hours of sleep the entire time I was there, from Thursday night to Monday morning. Again, I do appreciate their hospitality, but I will make it a goal to try to get them a new mattress. That mattress is over 20 years old, and is mostly wires and board.

My dad offered to drive me to and from the shows on all three days, which was really nice of him to do and I appreciate it. After 15 hours in a car, I had very little ambition to drive for awhile.

Friday’s event in Calgary went rather smoothly. Not a huge amount of people yet (and I say yet for a reason – stay tuned!), but comfortable. The first act on the stage was Denise Crosby (a.k.a. Tasha Yar from TNG) and Gates McFadden (a.k.a. Dr. Beverly Crusher). I honestly never heard the story of how Gates got fired from the show before (didn’t even know she was fired from the show, actually). As it turned out, she had issues with being portrayed as the worrying mother to the child genius Wesley, while he was seeking out advice from the men on the ship. She felt her character was a single mother who managed to raise a son who practically saved the ship every time all by herself, and thought it would be more interesting to have her give the helpful advice. Because of this, she was fired. Wow… I did not know that, and kind of angers me, because, well, she’s absolutely right of course.

They also commented that in the beginning, they never had scenes with the women together, as she and Denise Crosby never appeared in a scene together. The first time Gates was paired with Marina Sirtis (a.k.a. Deanna Troi), they had to be wearing tights and doing stretches. LOL Men…

The next act I saw was David Prowse. He was in the smaller room (the Boyce Theatre, which would later be the royal pain in the ass room for me). David Prowse was the actor who acted as Darth Vader in the Star Wars trilogy, and he also trained Christopher Reeve when Superman was first starting to film, which was bitter sweet for him because he wanted to play Superman, but they didn’t think Superman should be “British” but rather should be an American. (I still prefer Christopher Reeve as the best Superman in the movies, though I really like Tom Welling’s portrayal much better.)

David told a story about training Christopher Reeve that was kind of weird. He said he had to go away for a little while to train an emperor in some mideastern kingdom and left Christopher instructions on what to do and when. When he returned a couple weeks later, they were filming the Daily Planet scene. He went behind the stage to watch, and as soon as Christopher Reeve saw him, he stopped and started yelling at him, “Where the hell have you been? I’m already starting to lose some muscle.”

David was apparently very offended by this, but was later pulled aside from the director and told that ever since Christopher Reeve got the Superman suit, he “thinks he is Superman” and that he should just do whatever he tells him to do. So yeah, that was kind of interesting.

Saturday at the Comicon turned out to be a major gong show in terms of organization, or an apparent lack thereof. It appeared that the powers that be failed to comprehend just how much of a turnout would show up for this show. I mean, really? I think anytime an entire cast of anything shows up, doesn’t really matter which show, you are going to see a huge turnout. But I guess logic failed them or something. They were just selling tickets left and right. It got to the point that you couldn’t move around because there were too many people. At noon, the fire marshal closed the doors. No one else could get in for hours, and those inside couldn’t leave the building or else they couldn’t get back inside. Thankfully, I was one of the lucky ones who came early and managed to get in, as well as my brother. Otherwise, I would have been in a really bitchy mood if I went all that way just to get refused entry at the door. Seriously, they were turning away people who had pre-bought their tickets months ago. Poorly organized, in my humble opinion.

As I alluded to earlier, the Boyce Theatre, which was the secondary room for panels, was much smaller than the Corral. I wanted to get in to see the Cartoon Voices panel, which consisted of Billy West, Brian Froud, John Dimaggio & Tara Strong, but it was beyond capacity and I couldn’t get inside. My brother and I wound up walking around for a bit, then headed to the Corral to see the tail end of the Fringe panel with Jaskia Nicole and John Noble. It was alright. It’s a show I haven’t gotten into yet, as I try not to get too attached to FOX shows because, well, whenever I do, they get canceled.

The panel following the Fringe show was the Engineer panels of Brent Spiner (a.k.a. Data), Wil Wheaton (a.k.a. Wesley Crusher) and LeVar Burton (a.k.a. Geordi LaForge). This was a really good panel and was quite entertaining. Spiner plugged the hell out of his online series, which I need to find sometime and watch. LeVar sang the Reading Rainbow song. They talked about Trek and talked about Big Bang Theory, which all three of them have been on now. It was fabulous.

Immediately following the Engineers, was the Adam West panel. Yes, that’s right – Batman was in the house! As I mentioned in a previous entry, I have been a fan of the old Batman TV show since I can remember, and it was kind of a long-time dream of mine to see him, though honestly I would also have loved to have seen Burt Ward as well. Adam West has seriously aged very well, actually, and does not look like he’s in his 80s, but rather looks like he’s in his 60s. He also made the  joke that Robin was in the car. (Ha!)

After his panel show, I had to head straight for the photo opps place, as I had a photo opp with Adam West and really wanted Saturday to be the photo opp day so I could just sit and watch the shows on Sunday. I had to miss the Costume contest, which would have been awesome to see, as there were some really awesome costumes there. But when will you ever get a chance to get this photo taken again? The line took awhile though, as it started at 2:00, and I think I finally got my photo taken at 3:00. Then I quickly went to the washroom, and got in a line to pick up the photo. I must say, they had the process of photo opps down quite well, as almost immediately after the shot is taken, it is printed and ready to pick up. Much better than Creation Entertainment’s photo opp thing, where you have to wait for the next day or at the end of the convention.

Adam West even said, “Hey, how are you doing?” to me. Squeal!! Though he did look exhausted. Quite a lot of people were in the building and quite a lot of people wanted pictures with him. I never like how I look in photos though. But the bad part was because there were so many people in the building, it was kind of hot and humid in there. And after standing straight for an hour and a half or so, I didn’t look as enthusiastic as I wanted to. Now I regret not wearing the Star Trek uniform though.

After I got that, I was hungry. I only had a bowl of cereal in the morning at like 8:00 or so, and it was already 3:00 and I was starting to go weak in the knees. The food line wound up taking another 45 minutes standing and waiting just to get my food. I quickly gulped my garden burger down (which was okay, despite it being a garden burger. I prefer soy burgers), then I headed back to the photo area for the ultimate picture, the shot with the entire cast of TNG! Eeek!!

Once again, I had to wait. For awhile it looked like I might not get the photo, as there were a lot of people and only had a brief window of opportunity before they had to break for food then appear on stage together. In total, I was standing for about 6 hours straight on Saturday while waiting for my pictures to get taken. Totally worth it, but again, I was not happy about how I appeared in the photos, due to the tiredness and heat in the building. My curly hair was frizzy and all of that crap. I didn’t really get an opportunity to say anything to them, as the instructions were quite rigid “don’t talk to them, don’t touch them, just stand there, smile and walk away.” It’s understandable, as they were trying to make sure everyone could get their photos, but still it would have been nice to savour the moment a tad bit longer. Well, at least I will always have the picture. :)

Rather than wait for the photo in line again, I decided that I would pick up the photo on Sunday, so I could head back to the exhibition hall and find my brother, as we got separated when I was heading to the photo opp area for the Batman photo. I thought I would never find him, but as soon as I headed for the doorway that lead to the exhibition area, I saw him through the door. We sat down for a little bit as I gave him his ticket for the big show, then high-tailed it over to the Corral to find our seats so we could sit down.

Just about when the show was ready to start, an incredibly large, deathly obese man sat down right beside me. Whoever the hell does seating arrangements really needs to put these matters into consideration. They had all the seats strapped together with little velcro straps. So when this “heart attack man” (Beastie Boys shout out…) sat down next to me, half of him was sitting on me. The rest of the people in the 5th row beside me had help from the people behind us as we got unstrapped so we could move the seats down, so I wouldn’t have a crushing, and extremely warm fat guy sitting on me anymore. Thank you, velcro! You saved my experience. :)

I was sitting five rows from the front, but a little off to the right side of the stage, a perfect view for Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Wil Wheaton, as it turned out. But before the main event, they had a little pre-show, where they showed a film featuring various actors from other science fiction series, ranging from other Trek series (George Takei, and Robert Picardo) to actors from Battlestar Gallactica. A very special surprise guest appeared on stage to talk about how he got involved with Voyager because of TNG, it was Garett Wang (a.k.a. Harry Kim). He apparently was over at the Vulcan Days celebration and decided to show up out of the blue. He would later come to appreciate that gift a bit more on Sunday, as I will explain later.

Once all the pre-show was over, the crowd was eagerly waiting for the TNG cast to show up, when they announced they were going to take a half hour break. You would not believe the loud, collective sigh of disapproval from the crowd with that annoucement. LOL

At 8:30, finally the entire cast of The Next Generation appeared on stage together, for the first time ever since the show went off the air. They were sitting three to a couch. The first couch (which I was closer to) had Sir Patrick Stewart (a.k.a. Captain Jean-Luc Picard), Jonathan Frakes (a.k.a Wil Riker), and Wil Wheaton (a.k.a. Wesley Crusher). The middle couch had Brent Spiner (a.k.a. Data), Gates McFadden (a.k.a. Dr Beverly Crusher), and LeVar Burton (a.k.a Geordi LaForge). The final couch had Marina Sirtis (a.k.a. Counselor Deanna Troi), Michael Dorn (a.k.a. Worf), and Denise Crosby (a.k.a. Tasha Yar).

They were telling stories, making jokes, and answering fan questions. My very favourite moment of the show (indeed, of the entire weekend) was when Wil Wheaton answered a question about how he felt about being on stage with the whole cast again. I can’t put it into more eloquent words than he did, so here’s the link:

Wil Wheaton’s moment on stage

Almost brought a tear to my eye. It was lovely.

Then Patrick Stewart was asked a question, “Who was your favourite adversary on the show?” He bent over to ask the name of the person he had in mind to his fellow co-stars, and answered “Damon Bok”, while the crowd was shouting “Q!!!”. Suddenly, a voice out of nowhere piped up, “Oh, Patrick, that is a load of crap, and you know it!” It was Q! John deLancie made a surprise appearance, and all the members of the show were completely surprised by it. It was really cool. The entire place erupted when he sat down on the stage with the rest of the cast.

I probably got the most amount of sleep Saturday night from the weekend, as I was a little exhausted having stood up for nearly 6 hours, and been at a convention for 14.5 hours.

Sunday I almost slept in, as my father woke me up, to which I was stunned that my alarm on my cell phone did not go off, but later realized it was set to Monday to Friday, which is why it didn’t go off. So I quickly showered, and left with a lunch this time, with no time to eat quite yet. I still managed to get there with enough time to spare.

This time, the event organizers actually were prepared to handle the people. I guess they learned from their mistake on Saturday or something. They capped off the tickets sales at the door, and honoured any passes bought for Saturday that couldn’t get into the show. I am a little fortunate that I went the long way around, as I was in a shorter line to get into the door, and managed to get in through the front doors at 10:30, after arriving at 10:00. I quickly made my way back through the convention to the photo opps place so I could pick up my TNG shot, then made a b-line to the Corral to see the Futurama panel.

Seeing as I missed out the other day of watching the cartoon voice panel, I really didn’t want to miss this one. Billy West and John Dimaggio were on stage, answering questions and cracking everyone up from time to time with their voices. Even though Billy does the voice of Zoidburg, John also immitated him, as they both find him to be a hilarious character. It was highly entertaining, and makes me really wish now that I had Teletoon. (Maybe it’s time to upgrade my channel package? Hmmm….)

Immediately following the Futurama panel was the “love triangle” panel of TNG, consisting of Jonathan Frakes (a.k.a. Riker), Marina Sirtis (a.k.a. Troi), and Michael Dorn (a.k.a. Worf). Marina was a little late in arriving, so Jonathan and Michael took some opportunity to shoot the crowd and their own experiences. If this makes it into a documentary of some kind, I am totally buying it. LOL

When she finally did join them on stage, they began talking about the show and so forth. Honestly, I kind of found Marina to be a bit of a bitch, as she apparently threw quite a lot of temper tantrums about Deanna’s “love interests”, as Patrick got to have a say in his love interests, but she never got to. Or something like that. Another thing I learned from this panel was that Michael Dorn has a lot of airplanes, 9 of them or something like that. Very cool.

After this panel I had an hour to wait before Wil Wheaton was on. Whoever the scheduler is at this event needs to be shot, actually. They scheduled Wil Wheaton to appear on stage at the aforementioned Boyce Theatre, while Stan Lee was on in the Corral. I thought I could head over to the exhibition hall and buy a couple of t-shirts, as I never really had an opportunity to shop when I was there, and head over there with half an hour to spare. However, I wound up not being able to get into that event, because the seating capacity was met. Really, Wheaton is fairly popular right now. They should have had him in the big room too, at a different time. But instead I had to miss out on his show, which really annoyed me. I went in to see Stan Lee instead, but wasn’t happy about it.

Nothing really against Stan Lee, though. I just had my heart set on seeing Wheaton. I’ve been a fan of his since Stand By Me. And I wouldn’t even be blogging right now if he hadn’t been somewhat of an inspiration to me in the first place. I do, however, also find Stan Lee to be a little too conceited, to tell you the truth. And this panel did not prove that assumption wrong. It was a good show, and as I alluded to before, it was moderated by Garett Wang, as the previous moderator backed out for whatever reason and they asked him if he would do it, to which he responded, “Hell, yeah!”

Say what you will, but I loved Voyager too and was happy to see  him on stage. I still would have rather seen Wil Wheaton though. But ah! What are you going to do… It is what it is. C’est la vie, and all of that.

Immediately following Stan Lee’s panel, was James Marsters. I really know him from Smallville, as the Brain Inter-Active Construct, or Brainiac. Others knew him from Buffy and Torchwood. I must admit, I found him to be one of those ridiculously gorgeous guys, that for the first time in a long time, I found myself swooning over him a bit. He was dressed really cool, in black clothes with a tight tank top, and just looked amazingly hot. I took a lot of pictures of him, needless to say. ;)

I was half tempted to ask him a question (which I shied away from this entire weekend), “Your portrayal of Brainiac was probably the only “sexy” version of Brainiac I’ve ever seen before in any form. Was that by design, or was it just your natural charisma?” But yeah, as I said, I shied away from asking questions this weekend.

Last, but certainly not the least, Sir Patrick Stewart appeared on stage as a closing to the show. I think I took more pictures of Patrick Stewart than anyone else this weekend. At first I had a bad view, between two people who I guess were lovers, who just had to cuddle and bend their heads together a lot, completely obstructing my view, and annoying the hell out of me. But half way through the show, they got up and left, I guess to avoid the crowd getting out or something like that, and I finally had an amazing viewpoint and took a ton of photos of him. He also explained that he never really thought of Q as an adversary, but rather a friend who was always trying to point out something important to them. Funny, that’s how I always viewed him, too. :)

All in all, the show was fantastic, and I am really glad I went to see it. I will post my photo opps when I finally receive the jpg, which I don’t know when that will be. I hope soon, as I was intending to use it to try to enter a radio contest where I could win $30,000. If all else fails, I’ll scan the damned thing in and do it from there.

Sunday night I had maybe 2 hours of sleep at best. After a busy weekend, and the ever-daunting feeling of having to drive back home, not to mention the aforementioned uncomfortable bed, well, I was tired, exhausted, and wondered how the Hell I would be able to get home. Prior to leaving, I also had a sudden onset of diarrhea, which I obviously had to take care of before getting into a car for a few hours. Pepto Bismol to the rescue! :)

I found the drive back was way easier, as first it wasn’t pouring rain, but showering here and there, so the visibility was much better than when I went there. I also took the better route home and took the Coquahalla highway instead of following the Number 1 highway signs, which shaved off a couple of hours of driving. I also found I was so looking forward to getting home so I could sleep in my bed that that’s what was keeping me awake. While traveling, I also had my cat with me, in the back seat, in a big dog-sized cage so she could have her litter pan and all, but she really doesn’t like car traveling. I was also staying awake by blasting music and singing along to them.

One thing I will mention, though, is that the highway 1 really needs a lot of work. Not only are there millions of potholes due to fallen rocks and/or winter chains on tires, but there is a very huge lack of signage throughout the highway. I mean, there are hardly any signs to tell you you are on Highway 1 East or West, there are hardly any signs that tell you how much longer it will take you to get to the next big city, and so forth. But my biggest complaint is the lack of painted lines on that highway. Holy shit! That’s why it took me so fucking long to get there, because of the pouring rain, and lack of paint, I couldn’t see the lines and was terrified about sharing a highway with oncoming traffic.

I will say this, though. My car is really good on gas. :) So glad I bought it.

Monday I left Strathmore at around 8:00 am, and got home at 8:30 pm (one hour behind time difference = 13.5 hours). Much better than the 15+ hours it took me to get there. I quickly ate, as I didn’t eat much during the whole weekend, while watching a little TV. My eyes started to droop, so I went to bed at around 10:00. For the first time since I can remember, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out for the count, until 8:00 the next morning, and stayed in bed until around 11:3o.

The flooring was also done while I was away, so when I got home, it almost felt like I was moving in all over again. I spent Tuesday (which I also took off from work) doing my laundry, cleaned out my car (though it could use a wash and vacuum), and moved some things back into place in my living room. I took a lot of breaks, so I wouldn’t be too exhausted, and most of it is in position. Just a few minor things and the pictures need to be put back up.

All in all, the weekend was fabulous. I am really glad I went to this historic event, despite missing out on a couple of panels I really wanted to see. And by the way, the two t-shirts I bought were: 1. Family Guy dressed up as the Superfriends, and 2. Batman’s Rouges Gallery, which I have a serious lack of Bad Guy t-shirts.

Thanks for reading. I’m off to bed now. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BATMAN!

Posted in: Creative, Critique, Daily Life by melldclute No Comments

Flooding…

Published at: 11:04 pm - Sunday April 15 2012

Yeah, once again, a pipe sprung a leak. This happened once before last year, though it was just a hierline crack. I didn’t even notice it until I started to notice the floors were squishy from under. This time, though, the pipe kind of exploded and flooded half of my living area. There was a good inch of water all over the floor. So, once again, I will have to have the flooring replaced.

It kind of sucks because half of the floor is fine, but the way these restoration dudes operate, they want to charge the entire flooring cost to the homeowner’s insurance company. I can’t help but feel that that is such a waste of perfectly good hardwood flooring. Last time the flooding happened underneath the flooring. This time it was all above the flooring. I also thought the last time it happened they said the reason they wanted to replace the entire floor was so that if this does happen again, they could just replace the boards that were wrecked. I guess they are trying to make money too, but it sucks because so many trees have to die needlessly. I don’t like wasting things, and half of the floor is perfectly fine.

The good news is the restoration will happen when I am away on my trip to Calgary for the Comicon and Fan Expo. The bad news was I have had to have two dehumidifiers, and four fans running most of the weekend long, though I turned the fans off at night when I was sleeping, as it really is quite noisy.  I miss having peace and tranquility at night. I’ve had to sleep with ear plugs in the last couple of days, which isn’t really comfortable but at least it makes it so that I can sleep in peace and quiet, well at least it’s a muffled roar.

I have to say I am really looking forward to the Comicon in Calgary now. It’s in 11 days (yes, I am counting down the days). I’ve decided to get two photo opps this time. One will be with Adam West, because, well, it’s kind of been a childhood dream of mine to meet him and/or Burt Ward, as I was always a huge fan of Batman, ever since I can remember. My first crush was on Robin. The second photo opp will be even more monumental for me; a shot with the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yep, all nine cast members from season one. It was rather pricey, at $505, but when the Hell are you ever going to have that opportunity again in life?

When I was in high school and the subsequent post-high school years to follow, I found myself getting hooked on watching this show. It aired every day after school on ABC, and from those years, I must have watched all of the episodes at least 20 times each, if not more. It became another way for me to escape the debilitating depression I was under after having been bullied severely in school for years. So this too would be a dream come true for me.

What I need to figure out still though, is what the Hell will I wear to these photo opps. Should I wear a clever geek related t-shirt, get fancy dressed up, or wear my Captain’s uniform? The uniform won’t work with the Adam West photo. I can’t get too dressed up, as I have to be comfortable all day long, as both photo opps are on Saturday, and I will likely be there the entire day that day. I need to ponder this topic more. Suggestions are welcome.

The aforementioned pipe explosion occurred Thursday night right when Big Bang Theory was just about to start, at 8:00 on the dot practically. I had no sleep that night as I had no ear plugs and the dehumidifiers were loud. So what did I do the next day? I bought a litre of Pepsi. An odd thing happened as I was taking sips from it on occasions throughout the day. I started to notice my left arm at just above the elbow had a sharp pain, which traveled down through the rest of my arm and made my ring finger and pinky feel numb. I also noticed that my fibromyalgia got worse that night when sleeping, as the pains returned to my knees. It had been awhile since I felt those sensations.

I am now likely to believe, based on this sort of scientific discovery, that maybe there is a link between fibromyalgia and soda or caffeine. The more I drink Pepsi, the more intense my pain is. The less I drink it, the less I feel it, if it’s even there at all. So, could there be a correlation to this? Only one way to find out. I must stop drinking soda again. Caffeine withdrawal headache will be severe.

It’s already starting, actually.

Anyways, I just thought I would let everyone know what’s been going on lately. Thanks for reading.

Bang bang Maxwell’s silver hammer came down upon his head.

Posted in: Daily Life by melldclute No Comments

Motivation

Published at: 01:04 am - Sunday April 01 2012

Hey all. I know it’s been awhile since my last blog. I’d like to tell you I’ve been busy, and I’m sure that’s my typical response to blowing things off as of late, but the truth is I’ve been really, really lazy.

Sometimes I find it hard to find motivation to get my ass off the couch and do things. Lately, I’ve been struggling with that, particularly on the weekends. I always slate cleaning my house, and doing my taxes, for the past month’s worth of weekends, then I start to clean, and stop after 5 minutes. My energy has completely left my body and I just feel like vegetating on the weekends. Is that wrong? Am I just in serious need of a vacation? Am I depressed again? Is it all the fucking junk food I’ve been eating again? Is it all of the above? I don’t know.

My weight continues to grow, not shrink. It’s not surprising seeing as I’ve become sedentary and have been shoveling quite a lot of soda, chips, chocolate, and various other forms of junk food into my system. After I eat them, I even feel terrible, with a stomach ache and everything, so it’s not like I’m enjoying doing it. It is definitely an addiction that I seldomly can control. Why do I continue to punish myself?

Hmmm… Punishing myself… Perhaps that’s what I’m doing. I haven’t really been living a perfect life, if I ever have before. I just go to work, come home, play with the cat, and that’s about it. I haven’t really been doing much.

But alas, I don’t know if I am ever going to have the normal life, whatever the Hell that is.

A weird thing happened to me when I was eating some pizza at a food court today (yep, more junk food). A little girl, maybe five years old, came up to me and said, “I found you!” Then she paused for a minute, and said, “Oh, sorry.” The guy sitting beside me and myself had a little laugh about that.

Then the girl’s father told me that I actually look 90% like his wife and apparently they saw me and wondering if I’m related to her. I couldn’t deny it.

I was half-tempted to find this family again and see if I am related to her. There isn’t a lot that I know about my father’s birth family, after all. He was adopted. But the little I know of, I have heard that his mother left and moved to Vancouver of all places back in the late 1950s or so to live with a guy. I learned of this fact way after I actually moved here. So yes, there could be the possibility that I have relatives I’ve never met in the Metro Vancouver area.

Even though I was tempted to find out if we were related, I caved into my urge to get my shopping finished, fight the traffic to go back home, and then do nothing. So, I may have a twin out there. The real question is: am I the good one or the evil one? LOL

Well, that’s it today. Thanks for reading. Wake me up, before you go-go.

Posted in: Daily Life, Weight Loss by melldclute No Comments

The car buying adventure

Published at: 02:03 am - Sunday March 18 2012

Hey all! I realize it’s been a few weeks since I’ve written. I’ve been really busy trying to get a car, which has turned into quite the stress-filled adventure. And you know what that means, kiddies? It means I ate like a pig throughout the stress. Yay for pigging out! I’m so afraid to look at the scale that I’m avoiding it now.

Anyways, back to the car thing. As I indicated in my last post, I fell in love with the new Prius and was working hard trying to get that car. It turns out the bank financing company (which was TD) wanted a shitload of money down, as I had poor credit. By shitload I mean $11,000. Yep… Big shitload.

So I spent the last two weeks trying to figure out how I could get this ridiculous amount of money. I tried those credit places advertised on TV that show them actually helping people. The problem with those places is that if you are not a member, you have to have a co-signer, and I don’t have that. More ways Canada is geared to couples and not singles.

So then I tried to go to my bank to see about either getting a line of credit for that $11,000 down, or to get the full car loan from them instead, which would mean paying higher interest. They turned me down flat because of the bankruptcy. Now I really get why people are occupying banks. They really only work for the rich.

What really pisses me off about all of this is that they won’t even let you explain why you had to file for bankruptcy. The whole system is just too fucking black and white. It wasn’t really my fault, it was my ex. He racked up a lot of debt in my name and never paid me for it. When we split, I really had no choice. I guess I have four more years before I finally get dismissed from this black mark on my name.

That was of course the last avenue I could think of. In the meantime of running around trying to find a way to get a loan, I also applied for one of those bankruptcy car places you see advertised everywhere. This was as a back-up in case it didn’t work out. They already approved me rather quickly, though I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting my Prius with this place.

This place was also located way up in North Burnaby, near the Coquitlam border, which took me two hours to commute by transit to get there. My criteria for a car at this point was: 1. Fuel economy is really important. 2. No leather interior (animal rights reasons). 3. Automatic, as I don’t know how to drive a standard. 4. Works fabulously. They really only had one car that fit my criteria: a 2006 Honda Civic.

It’s an okay car. It’s just a normal, regular of the mill, car. The colour is kind of blah too, brownish-beigeish-greyish colour. I guess since I tried that new Prius and loved it so much, all other cars are just blah for me. It’s nice, just plain is all. But, seeing as I had little choice, I took the car. It’s still a very comfortable ride. And it is pretty good on gas. I drove it from the dealership on Clark Road, to the Superstore in Richmond, then home, and it didn’t put a single dent on the fuel gauge. So that was pretty good.

I am going to enjoy driving again. I don’t have to get up so damned early in the morning and have to deal with surly bus drivers, or smelly, coughing and sneezing people on the buses. In fact, today is the last day I will ride a bus in a very long time. Yay!

So now my plan will be to pay this car off, then try again to get my new Prius. By then, my credit should be spot on again, and my car can be used as a trade-in value, which Honda Civics are good for.

Eventually I will own my new Prius. It will be my goal in life.

Thanks for reading. Baby you can drive my car.

Posted in: Daily Life by melldclute No Comments

Buying a car…

Published at: 02:03 am - Sunday March 04 2012

When I first moved to Burnaby from Edmonton four years ago, I was really excited about selling my car and going with public transit, as it was cheaper and more efficient than any transit system in Alberta. Plus, the transit system in Burnaby was really awesome. I could get anywhere in 20-30 minutes by bus or SkyTrain. It was nice.

Since I moved to Richmond, I found the transit system to be much more unreliable. First of all, none of the buses I’ve been on since I came here have been hybrids. In fact, they are the oldest buses, I think. Also, as I mentioned in a previous email, the bus drivers all tend to have lead feet here. They go and stop, or stop and go with so much force, that you always jerk forward and backward, or side to side if you are sitting in a sideways seat. Not to mention the routes are really stupid. I live about a 15 minute drive away from work, but the way the transit system here works, I have to leave at 7:30 to get to work by 8:30, as there is no direct route. If they had a bus route than ran up and down Steveston Hwy, this would be another story. But they don’t for some inexplicable reason.

Not to mention getting groceries is always a hassle. I normally get them on a Saturday, which means busier malls and grocery stores, and busier roads. It’s quite a pain in the ass to carry a cart full of groceries on a bus, with the aforementioned lead footed bus drivers, who also jack the heat up like it’s -20C outside, when really it’s just a little cloudy and rainy.

So I’ve been doing the research and discovered the best fuel economy, environmentally-friendly car out there: The Toyota Prius. I made an appointment to view them and test drive one for today. I instantly fell in love with it! It was so nice to sit in, very comfortable, very quiet ride, and I barely had to touch the gas to get to 50 km. It was so nice, I instantly decided to order one. The colour I want will be there next weekend (red), and hopefully I will find out about the financing on this on Monday, as the banks weren’t open today. So, if all things go according to plan, I will be owning a new 2012 Prius by this time next week. :) You have no idea how excited I am about this.

With a car, I can actually get groceries on weekdays after work, when the traffic and stores aren’t so crowded. In fact, I don’t even have to leave home on the weekends if I don’t want to. Another plus! :)

Another interesting thing is I have actually never owned a brand new car before. I’ve always had used ones. While they had a 2006 Prius in red, I honestly liked the interior of the new one much better. It was so comfortable… I really can’t explain it better. I will likely take pictures of it next weekend and post it on Facebook for everyone to see.

This is what it looks like:

2012 Toyota Prius

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture doesn’t really do it justice, but it’s so gorgeous.

I’ll let everyone know how it goes next weekend. If everyone could send me good vibrations for the next week that everything will work out fine with this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for reading. I step into my space ship, I’m on my way home. I hope that I will make it, but there’s no way of knowing. The world is far behind me. I look into the sun.

Posted in: Daily Life by melldclute No Comments

Almost done my first two classes

Published at: 03:02 am - Monday February 27 2012

Hello all! This is to let everyone know that I am almost finished the first two classes for the Management Skills for Supervisors Diploma from Richmond Continuing Education.

All presentations and written assignments have been completed. The final exams, which take place next week, not this upcoming week, are worth 50% of the grade. I guess it’s time to read the chapters I have been avoiding reading. It is open book, so I’m not that worried about it. But 50% of a grade? Wow… that’s crazy!

What I have learned so far is actually quite extensive. In my Communications class, I have learned how to communicate better, and also how to listen better. It’s quite amazing how listening skills can help. The instructor also gave out good advice for negotiating shopping for a car, which is what I will be doing next month. Let’s hope I get a great deal.

What I have learned in the Supervisor course is even more extensive. I have learned what personality style I am, which is mostly analytical, with a strong solid characteristic backing me up. I have also learned how to deal with people of different styles, in particular the dominant boss style.

The dominant boss has always been somewhat intimidating to me. I guess it started back at my first real job, which was working for the Crappy Sun in Calgary. The manager of the pre-press department, who I think is still there, was kind of a dick. Okay, he was more than a dick. He was quite the asshole. He seemed to have a problem with me because I was a vegetarian. Being a vegetarian in the middle of beef country is not exactly an easy thing to do. Not only do you have to explain yourself a lot, but you get people trying to convince you that you are an idiot for having sympathies towards cows. This guy in particular actually had a home-based slaughtering business, where he sold the meat to surrounding areas butcher shops and so forth. Whenever there would be barbeques, of course, there were no alternatives besides meat. Whenever the department had a successful week and got rewarded with pizzas on Fridays, he always had to order meat pizzas. It’s not like I was being a bitch about it, either. I would politely decline. I know how to pick my battles. But he never hesitated to make me feel like I was worthless. He even went to the point of saying that I wasn’t the “in charge type”. I finally got frustrated being bullied and began looking elsewhere. Now I am working at a place where I just got a promotion to Production Coordinator. I really feel like rubbing it in his face.

Because of that guy, I somehow associated the dominant boss personality with his style. I’ve learned that that is wrong. He was a bully boss. The dominant boss is completely different from that style. And, more importantly, I’m supposed to get along well with the dominant boss, as the analytical personality really meshes up well with that style. Having learned that, I no longer feel all that intimidated around him as I had since I started working there. It’s all thanks to this course.

Of course I have learned other valuable things, but these things really tip the scale for me.

Now on to other things. It may come as no surprise to people that I am very much against the Harper government, or regime, whatever you want to call it. His contempt for democracy really makes me want to throw up. Now it appears that his party cheated during the last election by having a bunch of people from Alberta “robocall” people in ridings where it was a close race between the conservatives and liberals telling voters that the polling stations have been moved. I actually remember reading some warning issued from Elections Canada on election day that if people were receiving phone calls indicating their polling stations have moved, to ignore it, as someone was attempting to do a little voter sabotage. I remember musing to myself, “I wonder if Harper is behind that.” True enough, the conservative candidate won by very small margins in all of the ridings that this occurred in. While it’s important to note the investigation has not proven that the Cons were involved as of yet, you really can’t help but look at that statistic and think to yourself, “You rotten scum!”

I think Harper’s quest for more power corrupted him a long time ago. To me, he reminds me of Lex Luther from the Superman cartoons. You know he’s behind it all, being the clever little puppet-master that he is, but he’s really good at hiding his tracks. I truly believe that new bi-elections should be held in those ridings where the cheat happened, and now we’ll see if he indeed gets his precious majority government. Cheaters never prosper, and we Canadians cannot allow this blatant abuse of power go. I mean, really, if the situation was reversed, and this just happened where the liberals won a majority with a scam like that, do you really think the Cons would let them get away with that? Of course not. Then why should we?

And now that his party has officially pissed off people about all these internet bills designed to spy on innocent Canadians without a warrant (which is about as evil as a party can get), I really don’t see his candidates winning now. Now Canada sees the party for what it’s really about. I sort of feel sorry for the old die-hard Conservatives who unfortunately are going to take a fall for Harper’s blatant abuse of power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, they say. Harper has just proven that.

Perhaps the majority government will now fall down like a house of cards falling down. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Harper together again.

Thanks for reading. I will leave you with a clip of a song that I’d love to see go viral.

Mell

Posted in: Daily Life, Politics by melldclute No Comments

Going to the Calgary Expo this year

Published at: 06:02 am - Sunday February 19 2012

Hello all! Don’t you just love it when things start falling into place?

A couple of weeks ago, my parents informed me that the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation from the first season will all be attending the Calgary Comicon/Expo this year, at the end of April. After hearing about this I first bought the 3 day event, then booked the time off for work. I then had to wait until today to buy the Star Trek ticket separately.

I got up at 8:30 this morning so I could get as good a seat as I could. I tend to find a hiccup problem with ticketmaster sometimes, where I will just select one person ticket, then click continue and it gives me four tickets. Then I have to go back and do it again. This happened this morning as well. I bought the Trek ticket, wanting to get the front row, but only managed to get the 5th row due to the aforementioned hiccup problem. Not to mention I’m sure quite a lot of people and radio/television shows were buying up tickets left and right this morning at the strike of 10:00 (9:00 my time).

My next step in this trip planning is to get a vehicle, as I plan on driving there. I will be staying at my parents place, and can bring my kitty for the trip. What is still left to be decided is whether or not I will be carpooling with someone from my meet-up group. Regardless, I’m still planning on driving, as who the hell wants to spend close to $500 for airfare? That’s ridiculous! I could be making car payments with that kind of money.

In total, this trip has so far cost me $180 for these tickets. That’s even less than what I paid for a gold ticket at the Star Trek Convention in Vancouver last June. For the kind of money I will save by taking in this event, as opposed to previously thinking about going to the Vegas show, I could buy all the photo ops I want! What I would love to get is a pic of me with the entire cast of TNG, but I don’t know if that will be available or how much that will be, but damn, that would be cool! I also want to get a photo op of me and Adam West, as, well, I’ve loved Batman since I was like two years old.

I’m more inclined to get photo ops than I am to get autographs, personally. While it’s true that it’s not good for a re-sale value, I honestly don’t care about money with regards to doing fan related things. I care more about getting that personalized thing that I can look at on a wall and smile. I mean, seeing myself with the cast of TNG, or even with Adam West, hanging on my wall, or using it as my Facebook photo, that would be sweet!

After I figure out which car I want to get and get it, my next step will be to plan out the driving instructions to get from here to my parents place, then from my parents place to the Expo, then from the Expo back to my parents place, then of course from my parents place back home. Of course, for all I know the car I will get will have a GPS in it or something handy like that, too.

Once that’s accomplished, plan out the food budget and the extra money in case I see something cool at the Comicon (really, I really really really want to get the fourth comic of the Elongated Man mini-series that was back in 1993 or so, as that’s the only one I’m missing and it really drives me nuts not having it).

I am so looking forward to this event. You have no idea…

I will likely blog about my entire experience at this Expo as well, so look for it around the beginning of May. :)

Thanks for reading. I don’t need no wah, wah!

Posted in: Daily Life by melldclute No Comments

I’m not crazy!

Published at: 10:02 pm - Friday February 10 2012

Great news, everybody! I went to see a psychologist and he said, “you’re not crazy. You are just unhappy in your life. That’s all. There’s nothing medically wrong with you.”

Yay! I always knew that but was so sick and tired of doctors cramming anti-depressants down my throat.

I have been super busy as of late that I am starting to feel a burn out. As I had an appointment today, I previously decided to just use it as a vacation day. So now I have the rest of the weekend and today to just kick back, relax, but also prepare my presentation for my two classes next week.

After I left the appointment, I went to Chapters for the first time in a long time. I had been recommended a book by the psychologist, and a different book by my boss, so I thought I would try to find them both. While there, I spotted another Osho book that looked interesting, so I bought that as well. When I will actually find the time to read them is another story. LOL

As my previous posts have indicated, my friends and I have created a 60 second version of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the one about the whales). It is now up on the contest page. If everyone who reads this could view it and click “like”, I would greatly appreciate it. The more votes we get the better our chances of being selected as a finalist. The top ten submissions get invited to an exclusive viewing party, and the winner will be announced. I personally would just love to attend the screening party. Although the $10,000 would be nice.

I am also on a mission to figure out which car I want to get, and have actually gotten a Consumer Reports Car Buying Guide. So this may take another month or so but I hope to have a car by the end of March.

Today I decided to call my old car insurance company in Alberta to get them to send out a letter about how long I was covered for. It took about 15 minutes, as the lady on the phone couldn’t find anything for my name, which shocked me because that was the only company I used in Alberta. As it turned out, because I also had apartment insurance with this company, and was married, it was in my ex-husband’s name. That bewildered me to no bounds. I was the one who arranged it all, I was the person who was making the payments, it was coming out of my bank account, and he didn’t have a license nor a car. So… why the hell was it put in his name? That is so misogynistic. Anyways, I did manage to get them to send me a letter but have forgotten that my printer is on the fritz, so I will have to wait for Monday to print it out at work. Sign it, scan it, and send it back to them. This is just a request form, incidentally.

I had a very bizarre night last night. After class I was waiting outside at the bus stop for my bus to arrive. While I was waiting I noticed a fairly large silhouette of a big bald dude in the window of a house across the street, right in the middle of the front window of the house. I couldn’t see his face at all as there was a back lighting effect, but it was pretty clear he was looking out of his window. “Why the hell would someone stand in their window and stare outside?” was the thought that entered my mind.

After about five minutes of trying to avoid looking there, but really not being able to, I decided to change my tactic. Earlier in school I had learned that most communications are through body language. So instead of trying to ignore him, I shifted to staring right back at him, with the same level of intensity he was giving out. I was sort of playing that childish “staring game” thing, you know, whoever looks away first is the loser. Not even a minute passes of this intense stare back at him, when he makes the “crazy” motion with the finger around his head at me, then left the window. “Oh, yeah…” I thought to myself. “I’m the crazy one. Whatever!”

I mean, really. What the hell was I doing? I was waiting for a bus. What was he doing? He was gawking at me. Who’s the crazy one in this picture? LOL At least I won the staring game, though.

Then when I was switching buses, a dude on the bus who clearly had way too much to drink or whatever, just starting vomiting on the bus floor. I jumped out of the bus back door, went back to the front and told the bus driver. It was so gross… Not to mention it really inconvenienced a lot of people really late at night who were trying to get home. The bus had to wait for a clean-up crew, so everyone was out of the bus, except the drunken idiot, who remained on the bus. I hopped on to a different bus that also gets me home, and that was that. But holy… that dude just made me nauseous.

Anyways, just thought I would give everyone an update. Thanks for reading.

Some day you’ll find it, the rainbow connection: The lovers, the dreamers, and me!

Posted in: Daily Life by melldclute No Comments
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